


Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth

by taichara



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-06-24 15:48:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19726774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: Something was forgotten about while Baron was put back together again.Or, rather, someone.





	1. Chapter 1

Evening fell slowly over the hallowed peaks of Mount Ordeals, and the fallen and the forgotten began to creep out of their lairs in ever-greater numbers, prowling mindlessly, hopelessly, below the shining pinnacle. The night brought the dead out in force, searching for what they had lost and would never find again.

The dead, and one other, whose quest was far more successful.

Kain marked his targets once again, launched himself from his perch on a crumbling shelf of stone. Black blood and a whistling blade flew through the air as the burnished, silvery oxtongue of his lanc clove the lead horror clean in half, before Kain pivoted in place, sweeping his weapon in a lethal half-moon that struck down two more wights before he took to the air a second time. 

It was, all in all, over in moments. Thought and motion were as one; no hesitation, no regret. Kain stood on a scree of boulders to survey the dead, calmed his breath, and considered his next choice.

It was a simple one.

_It's time._

It was so much, so very much, concentrated into just two small words; but Kain would be the first to admit, if only to himself, that obscuring his exact thoughts was how he'd behaved all his life. Habits were hard to break, even when perched on a splinter of rock overlooking Ordeals' blood-soaked switchbacks --

_It's time, and I cannot shake the suspicion that I've pressed on too long._

_Not for me, but for ..._

He shook his head, windblown hair flying briefly into his face. There was no 'who', only a growing sense of unease that had nothing to do with the mountain's uncanny grotto and its unliving failures. This was something else, something that goaded him ever more sharply to hone his skills and his spirit, a dread that pushed him and left him ever more certain that he needed to be _more_ , to have mastered himself as quickly as possible, before --

Before what?

He didn't know. _Couldn't_ know, as long as he stayed on the mountain. He was no mage to be flinging scrying spells around, after all. A hoarse bark of laughter crept up on him as the sun sank lower and the paths all around whispered with the gathering dead; the answer was right there, perhaps had been there the entire time.

_If something has happened, then I should be there -- wherever 'there' may be -- and not immured on a mountain._

_What use is honing myself if I use it to do nothing but strike down the mindless dead? I prove nothing by staying here longer. I've only been attempting to -- reassure? purify? absolve? who knows? -- it's only been for myself, to begin with. I see that well enough now._

_And something has happened. I feel it._

He'd spent enough time training and contemplating his navel; it was time to return. The dead would need to find someone else to send them to their rest.

-*-

The trek back to Mysidia, after weeks of Ordeals' dead flesh and barren stone, was a balm to a spirit Kain hadn't realized he'd bruised -- metaphorically speaking -- to begin with. Even with the prickling in the back of his head pressing him onward, the sight of growing things and honest wildlife, even the monstrous kind, buoyed him up in a way he swore he'd never admit to.

The zus, though, those grew annoying quickly. He was wasting time, all the more so by leaping at the things while weighted down even with the bare-bones kit he carried with him. So there was nothing for it but to make the trek through the forest south of the mountain and (not without a sigh and a grumble) whistle up a chocobo from the Ordeals grove to speed his travels; and as much as he hated to admit it, the overgrown songbird _did_ make the trip to the peninsula as smooth as silk. 

By the time Mysidia's pale buildings and white inner walls flickered through the trees, Kain was feeling almost pleasant.

Then he saw the rest of it. 

Like a broken-down camp of the largest size, dozens of tents of all shapes and sizes, hastily thrown up, filled nearly half the city's grassy plazas. Tents, and rough hearths, and bundles of goods -- and Kain knew the look of these people, their clothing and bearing, like he knew his own. This was _Baron's_ people huddled in Mysidia like castaways. A hiss slipped though his teeth; he hadn't realized he'd clenched his jaws at the sight.

_I knew it. I knew something -- I spent too long on Ordeals. I should have been in my own kingdom and these people are suffering for my self-absorption ... No._

_No, this is not the time for that foolishness, either._

Unlashing his kit and shouldering the small pack, checking that the hood of his lance was still securely in place -- and wishing that he hadn't had his helm crack into fragments days past -- Kain turned his now-skittish chocobo free and strode towards the closest cluster of tents. A stop at the inn for a wash and a rest, assuming either could even be found, could wait. He needed to _know_.

"Captain Highwind? Is that _you_ , sir? Is it truly?!"

He'd not gotten closer than a hundred paces and one of the Baronfolk -- wait, he _did_ recognize her, wasn't that Lorraine from the castle guard, she usually stood at the second gate -- already rushed towards him, waving frantically. He saluted slowly, raising his weapon in the dragoon's traditional greeting, and was promptly rewarded by a swarm of Baronians converging on him, frantically babbling. No amount of protest could get them to slow down, and all he could pick out of the din was scattered fragments: 'bones', 'fangs', 'evil plants', 'restless' ...

_What ...?_

Finally he'd had enough, and there was one route they couldn't follow him on. A tensing of posture was the only warning and then he was aloft to the sound of the crowd's startled cries and Lorraine's oath, coming to rest in the branches of a sturdy nearby oak.

"I can hardly follow a word, let alone understand! Serjeant Lorraine, report!"

The familiar bark brought her up short, quieted the milling civilians. Lorraine drew herself up a little straighter, tucked her hands behind her back, threw her head up to meet Kain's piercing gaze where he still stood in the oak's heavy boughs.

"Baron's under siege, sir, and we were given orders to evacuate the town by the king himself. Some of us brought as many as we could through the Devil's Road. We still smuggle a few here and there but it's risky work. Ser Cid and the Red Wings carried others to Damcyan. We don't know what's next, Captain."

'The king'. That could only be one person. Kain felt cold horror clamp sharp teeth into his guts. The king, and the queen, surely ...

"Where is the king now? And --"

Lorraine pointed in the direction of Mysidia's inn, half-hidden by trees and tenting.

"Her Highness is usually there at the inn where we can find her if someone needs healing the other white mages can't handle. His Majesty ..."

She trailed off. The cold in his guts intensified.

"Lorraine, where is Cecil?"

"... I don't know, Captain. I'm not sure Queen Rosa knows either."

-*-

Kain didn't need much prodding from Lorraine to take to his heels and make arrow-straight towards the inn and its one particular inhabitant, oh no. He'd passed more tenting on the way; those Baronfolk who paused to greet him as he sped past, he answered in turn. He didn't see too many ill or injured, at least, which was a small blessing in a sea of confused tension. Whatever happened, perhaps there were few casualties.

He could hope, at least.

The moment Rosa saw him she'd embraced him, ignoring kit, lance, armour, dust, old blood and everything else that clung to him, and any fleeting thought of protesting evaporated in a heartbeat. The lance found a wall to lean against while he crushed her carefully close. She looked pale, strained, but collected and -- thanks be to the gods -- unhurt. He hated to let her go. But let go he did, with a wry chuckle and a protest that he'd not be the only one needing a wash after that.

And then she'd barely given him enough time to manage that wash before she was tossing tunic and breeches through the cracked-open door -- ignoring his shouts of indignation -- and insisting he come to the common room to talk. He knew better than to protest _that_ ; the last time he'd heard that timbre in her voice, they were facing down the end of the world.

-*-

"Kain, if you don't finish that I'm going to stare at you until you do. You're sinew and bone."

Maybe. But what Rosa was telling him was far more important than the food on his plate, no matter how mouth-watering after the austerity of his mountain trials. He tried to protest; she grabbed the spoon, loaded it up, and planted it in his hand.

"Eat. I can still talk while you're doing it."

Well, fine then. With a sidelong look, he started back into the seafood pasty, breaking up the crumbling shell pointedly. Rosa sighed and shook her head.

"Your time on the mountain's going to be put to good use, I'm afraid. Most of the -- I suppose it _is_ an invading force -- the invaders are undead, or closely allied to the undead. Most are almost serpentine or close to it, others vaguely plant-like but look made of bone and spectral fires. But, mainly, we're dealing with undead manifestations of one kind or another."

An undead invasion of Baron. Kain eyed Rosa dubiously.

"But where would these things be coming from? There weren't so many killed, not even during the worst of it all. If slaughter were just cause for a dead rebellion Edward would be up to his throat in shambling horrors right now --"

"Kain!"

"Am I wrong?"

He made inroads into his meal while Rosa stared daggers at him. Maybe it _was_ out of place, a small bit of him protested; he ignored that part. It didn't make sense when he had fragments babbled at him and it still didn't make sense now. But the silence dragged on and ... and Rosa was surely under enough stress as it was. Now that _was_ unworthy behaviour from him. Finally he sighed.

"... I apologize."

"Good. Don't use that as an excuse to ignore your food, either."

"Rosa ..."

"You heard me. As for the cause ..."

Now Rosa twisted a lock of her hair anxiously, watching the russet ringlet spring wildly around when she let it go. Kain wanted to comment; instead he held his tongue, ate his food, and waited.

"... I think Cecil knows, or at least thought as much. He didn't just stay behind out of misplaced nobility; he clearly had _something_ in mind, but exactly what, I had no time to find out before I needed to get the exodus under control."

Cecil. Now there was the cold coming back to gnaw at his vitals again, not at all diminished for having found one of two anxieties alive and well. He lowered the spoon as he saw Rosa's hand clench on the tabletop.

"So he _did_ stay behind."

Rosa looked away, mouth tightening.

"He did. To attempt to contain the source of the invasion while Cid and I coordinated the evacuations, and I chose the Mysidian half because --"

"-- Because you intended to come looking for me on Ordeals."

"Yes."

She turned back, met his eyes.

"But you _knew_ , didn't you? You felt something."

So it wasn't just his imagination, then? That was somehow simultaneously reassuring and more than a little terrifying, but he nodded nonetheless.

"I did, and now I'm here, and I'll find him. I'll find him and whatever beast is trying to destroy Baron _this_ time, and the kingdom will be put to rights. Baron's people deserve better than this after everything that's happened to them.

"And that battle will have Cecil there, because I can't imagine him being struck down by some unliving wretch. He's a holy warrior. That's what paladins _do_."

Seeing the little smile on Rosa's face, Kain paused. Then snorted when she reached across the table to pat his hand indulgently.

"Perhaps you need to think of sleeping, first, dear Captain Highwind? That's a high-spirited declaration, even for you."

... Curse her. She always was observant.


	2. Chapter 2

_: Don't tell me you thought that really was the end of it, Captain. :_

The voice in his ear, sibilant, haunted, hateful, bitter as ashes, cut through the pain that gripped him and jarred him to attention. Cecil eased one bloodied eye open as much as he dared -- as much as he could -- and then the other, peering dimly through tangled hair at the creature that remade itself, once again, before his eyes.

"I ... defeated you ..."

Translucent flesh drew itself together over dry bones that hissed, angrily serpentine, baring fangs at him that snapped a breath away from his face. A tattered uniform; bruise-blue flesh, now scaled, now coloured in death; now mad golden eyes, slitted and unblinking, now an aquiline profile crowned with golden hair. Now a skeletal horror his mind refused to accept --

_: For a second time, no less. And again after that! But call it what it was, Captain; you didn't defeat me, you slaughtered me. :_

He couldn't move. His arms were wrenched above his head, caught in spines of thorny vertebrae and tangled coils of withered flesh. Bony thorns pierced him, pinned him to his knees, forced him upright despite his agony. He felt a slow, trickling warmth trailing down his back and wondered if it was his own blood.

_: Slaughtered me and then put me out of mind as if I never existed; as if I never served as loyally as you. :_

Beyond the horror -- beyond his captor -- lay his sword, a spot of gleaming purity marred with black ichor, and all but lost against bony growths and the dissonance of the maroon and gold tapestry, now splashed with blackness and bloody crimson, of Baron Castle's royal approach. 

That holy blade had cleaved the beast in half and sent it howling into nothingness again.

So why ...

_: Did you think you would escape that sin forever? :_

Think? It was hard, so hard, to think at all right now. Cecil fought against the blood-dimming tide in his veins, fought to lift his head. What had happened? 

How had it gone so wrong?

What would happen to Baron if he ...

_: I think you're failing to listen to me. :_

His bindings tightened and Cecil choked back a cry of agony, bony spurs digging into battered flesh. But, even without his blade, he was hardly helpless, not against an unliving monster like this ...

... Nothing. No reserves left at all. He'd never felt so devoid of light in a long, long time, and there was not a shred of strength left in him, not enough to fuel even the smallest of white magics. 

_I don't remember casting so much ..._

The golden eyes -- the dead, cauled eyes -- flashed, long fangs bared in a rictus grin.

_: I see what you're trying for, Captain, but it won't help you now. I'm not fool enough to leave a spell-caster able to work their witchery, and what a shame on your post for you to forget how to disarm a mage. Or a paladin. :_

_: Did you forget Mysidia already? You were so efficient there. :_

Darkness welled up inside Cecil, threatened to drown him; a darkness not from years of blighted training, but of guilt and shame at his past. His tormentor chuckled once, liquid and raspy, before a hiss like a lash scoured him again. 

_: You will not push me into the abyss again, Captain. I will not be forgotten so easily. I will not be ignored, nor cast aside, the way you cast aside His Majesty and all the boons he granted to you for all those long years. Ungrateful wretch. He should have left you to die mewling in the courtyard. :_

_: And you're only the beginning, you base-blooded cur who dared to seize the King's throne! :_

Cecil choked back the pain, forced himself to lock eyes with his captor. Dug down past the pain and the darkness.

"Baigan ..."


	3. Chapter 3

Kain didn't recall just when he'd gone to bed -- if 'bed' described a makeshift camp thrown down on the floorboards next to Rosa's own bed. And now, stalking his way across Mysidia's crowded lanes with the briefest of greetings for the Baronfolk who crossed his path, he wondered if she didn't have something to do with that. Maybe she'd put something in his food; he was _reasonably_ certain Sleep was not a magic skill a white mage picked up.

But then neither was filling targets with a rain of arrows. Rosa was Rosa.

_And I can be put to better purpose in Baron._

Awake at the crack of dawn, he'd crawled from the nest he'd made, noted Rosa still sleeping and slipped away to sketch another bit of a wash and scavenge up something approximating breakfast. A plan of sorts formed while he ate; it solidified while he inspected his armour and, finding it passable, scoured it as best he could before cinching it back into place.

There was no sense in his lurking around the city of magic. He had precious little skill for nursemaiding, even less for reassurances, and Mysidia itself seemed secure. So, then, his path was clear -- it was time to return to Baron and find Cecil, to put an end to whatever horrors were gripping the kingdom.

And maybe, just maybe, settle a lingering bit of discontent in his heart.

Armoured, armed, carrying only the lightest of necessities, Kain made his way toward the towering walls surrounding the witchling portal of the Devil's Road. One Mysidian militia-mage tried to bar his way 'for his own good' and Kain shook his head, sent the man packing with a grim snort and a curt wave of his now unhooded lance. 

"I know exactly what I'm doing and where I'm going. Talk to Baron's Queen if you doubt me, but block my path and I _will_ mow you down."

"... As you say."

The man looked doubtful even in the shadow of his massive hat, but Kain hardly cared. This was it, then. Without breaking stride he pushed the door to the Road open, crossed the flagstones, and stepped into the portal's gleaming light.

-*-

Baron was dead.

Kain couldn't muster any other description. Standing in the town's barren plaza, he felt as if he walked across a corpse. There was not a sound beyond the gurgle of the watercourse and the wind whistling through the empty streets; no carts, no footsteps, no laughter or chatter or cursing. No clangor from the weaponsmith, no merchants hawking their wares, no jingle of armour as guardsmen or Red Wings walked by. Nothing. It was a perfect counterpoint to the utter lack of human presence, doors left hanging open all around him, windows darkened.

Dead. A ghost town, left for actual ghosts. Or so he hoped. Before daring the castle, Kain needed to look for stragglers.

_I need to be certain._

If even one of Baron's people remained behind, that was too many. Kain firmed up his stance, felt the padded grips of his lance beneath his fingers. All around him was nothingness and to the north --

\-- the direction of Baron Castle --

\-- lay damnation, coiling across the weathered ancient stonework like ivy stitched from dead men's bones. If Kain were honest with himself, which he was making some effort to do, he was frankly dreading discovering just what that pale growth was.

That would come later. He had a task.

-*-

Rosa was not pleased today, not at all, and the clear concern on the faces of everyone she came to visit did absolutely nothing to take the edge off that displeasure. Not because she was angry at them, no, not at all! -- as she made every effort to assure, with a sigh and a rueful smile, again and again, as she tended to wounded bodies and hearts as best she could and hoped for a message from Cid, or even Edward himself. No, it was not her people that vexed her, it was --

_Why did you -- argh --!_

Of _course_ Kain had up and left Mysidia the moment she was occupied with the thousand necessities big and small that confronted her every morning. Or even earlier, she wasn't sure which. Of _course_ he had. He'd all but said that was his plan, after all, hadn't he? She hadn't taken it to be that literal!

_But I should have, really. He and Cecil are cut from the same cloth, I swear, and if I weren't dealing with as much as I am I would've anticipated this mad stunt of his._

Cecil; oh, now there was another bone of contention. No matter how much she saw the sense of fleeing Baron with the more traumatized of their people -- and it wasn't as if Cid hadn't done the same with the rest of Baron's population -- oh, it _rankled_ and reminded her all too well of that one moment back on the Lunar Whale when she, in all honesty, had been sorely tempted to ram the horn of her bow somewhere Cecil would've regretted. 

_So, where to go from here, now that Kain's pushed my hand._

Oh, but the answer was painfully obvious, wasn't it. As much as she wanted to continue to do whatever she could for Baron's refugees, perhaps it was time to be proactive instead of reactive. Her careful tallies of names and needs, injuries and fears and other things, small and large, mocked her from their parchment piles on her makeshift work desk. Wouldn't it be just as irresponsible for her to do the same as Kain did, they seemed to whisper -- wouldn't be just as much a dereliction of duty?

_... No. With the three of us -- and it will be the three of us -- we can bring this nightmare to an end. I believe that. I refuse to believe otherwise._

_Together we'll save Baron._

Filled with sudden resolve, Rosa pushed to her feet and left the piles of parchments behind. First she needed to speak with Lorraine and the rest of the castle staff who arrived in the convoy to Mysidia -- and weren't some of the guildfolk here as well? -- and then she'd be off. And she knew exactly where to go.

-*-

Hours of searching -- to Kain's relief -- turned up not a single lost soul within Baron's walls. Neither did he find corpses, which was a relief of a different kind ...

... Or it was, until he approached the castle gates.

He could only hope that the raw and bloody bones strung like splintered, ivory vines across the stony walls did not belong to any of the townsfolk.

_What madness is this?_

Despite the rising in his gorge, he tried the gates; the massive leaves refused to move, heavy as lead and shot through with dead, bloody growths. Locked out, once again, it seemed. The bitter taste in his mouth took on whole new dimensions at the memory. Once again something, or some _one_ , did not want him inside ... or anyone else, perhaps.

_But did it seal off _all_ passages, or did it make the same fatal mistake that Cagnazzo did?_

Retracing his steps a few score paces, Kain tilted his head back, surveying the castle with a critical eye. Could he vault them, maybe, by using the stones and the growth patching the curtain wall as hand- and footholds if needed? If only the wyverns had lived ... if only. 

_'If' will hardly get me far. I'm not sure I fancy that jump, either, and with no way of knowing what waits on the other side into the bargain. No doubt it's better to try the slower option first, despite all._

Another trudge across Baron's abandoned carcass, then, lance held ready for attacks that never came, because 'the slower option' waited for him nearly far south and west from the great front gates, an unobtrusive door bound in rusting iron let into the stone of Baron's upper quarter. That door led to the subterranean waterways that fed the town's watercourse and the castle's needs both, and it could be his way inside ...

... He slowed, staring, as the upper course and its waiting portal came into view around the corner of a guildhall. Someone stood next to access door, pale and --

"Where have you been, Kain Highwind, and just what did you think you were doing leaving without even a word?"

\-- and Rosa was staring him down, bow in hand, quiver filled with gleaming arrows on her shoulder.


	4. Chapter 4

Oh, she saw that look. That quick flicker of surprise mixed with dismay -- maybe 'guilt' was a better word -- and swift calculations as his gaze flickered from her face, to her bow, to the quiver and the array of pouches and phials carefully knotted to her sashes. Rosa had no doubt of what he was thinking, and she was hardly about to let him make the first move.

_Oh yes, Kain, you're all too used to being able to hide yourself in the shadow of that dragonish helm of yours. But that's not going to help you now._

"Don't try, Captain Highwind; I don't have the energy to argue with you right now. We need everything we have to get into the castle, after all."

As she watched, Kain tensed, drew a breath, released it slowly, relaxed the slightest fraction. A tiny smile flitted across his mouth and she lifted a brow, her free hand drifting towards the waterway door's heavy latch.

"Yes?"

"Nothing, Rosa. Nothing at all. I was only ... surprised, I suppose."

Her brow went higher as she hauled the door open on creaking hinges that flaked with rust. She peered into the half-light beyond; he padded up behind her, murmuring under his breath. She turned back to eye him with a wry half-smile of her own. 

"Surprised, is it? Then what aren't you sharing?"

Kain's answering laugh was surprisingly honest.

"That I hope we don't find ourselves mired in the dark in there, or we'll never find our way out again."

“Then it's a good thing for us that I borrowed a mage-light, isn't it.”

-*

"So tell me, Rosa, what madness took Cecil's sense and made him decide to face this ... whatever it is alone? You said he had some sort of plan, but not what it was."

The waterway was, as always, dim and dank and generally unpleasant, and they hadn't managed to cross more than three of the moisture-sodden bridges without being accosted by great hungry crocodilians, enormous snapping molluscs, and stranger things. No great threats, any of them -- not after the battles they'd been through -- but tiring, and tiresome, and a drain on their energy. And maybe he wasn't choosing the best of conversational subjects, as it certainly wouldn't lighten the mood, but Kain wanted to know. He _needed_ to know. It was plain on his face, and Rosa saw no reason to avoid the subject, either.

Not that she had that much to share, unfortunately, but it was a welcome break from battling fishes and picking bloodied scales out of her hair.

"Not a _plan_ , so much, or if he did he didn't see fit to share it with me, which is a habit I hoped he hadn't decided to cling to. But something in mind, or something _on_ his mind ..."

Pausing, she thought back on their too-swift exchange; the look of sorrowful recognition, the resignation --

"... I think he knows what this horror is. Or believes he does. Why he didn't see fit to share that with me, I can't tell you -- but the both of you have a certain aggravating habit of attempting to keep me out of things for my own good, don't you. And here we are, moving more than half-blind."

Kain was wise enough to only duck his head and cough slightly, she noted. 

"If he was right ... Whether or not he was right, he still needs us both. He didn't manage to do this alone, and cannot do this alone, or the castle gates wouldn't be in the state they are."

She hoped her voice wasn't as unsteady as it sounded to her own ears; if it was, Kain gave no sign of it, and she was thankful either way.

-*-

The further they'd wound their way through the waterway, the more disturbing their surroundings -- and the inhabitants -- grew. Gators gave way to skeletal water serpents; gelatinous beasts to conglomerations of bone and translucent blood; the walls rippled with strange bony thorns, the water turning a murky violet-red.

Worse was the moment they emerged onto the moat's submerged ledge, as clinging bony ivies clutched at their faces and stabbed at exposed flesh. Rosa shuddered. Kain looked grim as a statue. But they moved onward, wading through the horror and fighting off the shambling bone beasts that barred their way with sharp brilliant arrows, healing spells and the sting of a blessed lance.

Which made it all the more surprising when, reaching the heavy iron-bound door leading into the castle's undercroft, they found it unsealed and unguarded. Covered in ominous growths like twining vertebrae, but unguarded. Rosa looked to Kain, who nodded once; she unlocked the door, carefully, and he reached ahead with the butt of his lance to push it open.

Nothing.

He flicked a glance towards her, and she nodded.

"Let's go."

Inside, the castle was nearly as dim as the waterway passages. Not a lamp nor torch was lit, yet some form of witchling light filtered in; Rosa, eyeing the translucent, bony tendrils slithering across the walls -- _through_ the walls -- felt certain it came from the very bone-thorns themselves. She chose not to think on it any further.

Ahead, through the side-passages, the main hall lay. Kain took a few strides forward, paused, and fell into a combat stance. Speeding her pace, Rosa re-strung her bow, reached for the first arrow. 

"What is it?"

"I hear something approaching --!"

A maelstrom of ghostflame and serpent fangs flowed through the archway and raced towards them. Kain swore and leaped; Rosa set arrow to string and let fly before he landed, silvery barbs and gleaming blade striking ghostly substance simultaneously. The thing shrieked, a high ululating wail, and lashed out with tendrils of sickly green flame tipped with rotted fangs, sinking them into Kain's flank as he gathered himself for another leap.

"Kain!"

Rosa shouldered her bow and switched to incantations, the soothing touch of healing magic mending the rents in Kain's flesh while it burned away the apparition's substance. Steadied now, Kain saluted her with his weapon before plunging it again and again into the ghostly mass --

And then it was over, as suddenly as it began. Breathing heavily, Kain slunk towards the archway, peered ahead to the hall, and paused again.

"Rosa?"

"I'm here. What do you see?"

He moved back a pace, gestured for her to join him. The sharp tips of his nails, scraping agitatedly against the wall of the archway, scored marks through the fleshy growths there.

"Tell me if you're seeing what I see, there in the middle of the great hall."

Well, that was ominous. Gathering herself, Rosa forwent stealing her own peek and strode forward to take a proper look at whatever it was Kain thought he saw.

_!_

_No --_

There on blood-stained flagstones and ruined velvets, a flash of brilliance in the dimness that radiated from a long and slender thing. A thing that Rosa rushed to, snatching it up from the small pools of wetness that stained it and clutching it in both hands as Kain came up behind, looking grimly justified. Whirling, she held it out to him. 

Cecil's sword.

"He ..."

Kain shook his head, gestured with his lance at the throne room beyond them, its door still firmly closed.

"We check there first?"

Sparks of resolve danced down her spine and Rosa nodded once, firmly.

"Let's go. I'm sure he's waiting."


	5. Chapter 5

_: The castle has visitors, Captain. :_

Cecil opened his eyes again; there was nothing but darkness, this time, and the rattle of bone and the rasp of scales. He'd been moved, but where, he wasn't certain; the dungeons, likely. The air had felt cold and damp against bare skin before he'd turned in on himself to try and rally the strength remaining to him and was hardly improved now. 

Baigan's spectre loomed in front of him, grinning, furious.

_: Would you like to know who? :_

He lifted his head, refusing to avoid the dead mad stare.

"Tell me."

_: A false queen and a traitor too proud to carry his kingdom's dark sword. :_

Rosa. Kain. Kain? Cecil let out a breath that was more than half a startled oath. How? When? No, it didn't matter -- what mattered was that they were here, they we both here.

... They were both here in the castle, and Baigan --

_: Do your duty, Captain. We should greet them, since the throne lies empty thanks to you. :_

Fanged thorns sank into his flesh.


	6. Chapter 6

If the castle was dim, the throne room itself was a shadowy abyss despite -- somehow -- the guttering light of two torches that made Rosa's skin crawl. Because, after all the time that passed, they _should_ have burned out long ago.

And it was cold, so cold, in the echoing chamber. She felt every hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Yet she couldn't help but stare at the empty thrones and quietly despair ...

_: I'm sorry, White Mage Rosa, Dragoon Kain, but His Majesty is not here to take your petitions. :_

– a voice from nowhere, inhuman, echoing, slithering into her head, and yet she _knew_ it --

_: Perhaps you can direct your disappointment to this disgrace to the king and his own oaths? :_

Ghostlight flared, illuminating the chamber in a ghastly green-white glare like a snake's pearly underbelly, and both Rosa and Kain fell back a step in instinctive warning. On the steps of the dais something was forming: a quivering, twitching mass of unliving flesh and uncoiling bony barbs the size of several bodies, twisting ropily through and around itself like a knot of snakes. Snakes that became all too real before their eyes as the thing flowed towards them. Kain stepped forward again, lance low and ready, prepared to lunge --

The flowing knot of festering serpents twisted, reared, uncoiled, resolved itself into a flickering phantasmagoria of dead snakes and worse as an unliving but humanoid shape, still dressed in the tatters of Baron's colours, took form at the head of the knot. Twin viper's maws hissed with gape-jawed malice and golden eyes gleamed like ghost lamps above a fanged mouth fixed in a rictus smile, flickering in and out with the corpse-phantom of the nobleman now lost. Rosa's jaw dropped.

" _Baigan?!_ How -- what happened --"

_: Didn't he tell you? Another sin. :_

In a sickening swell of bone and serpentine spines the snakes surged again, unfolding like a corpse blossom, and Cecil heaved suddenly into view, gasping for air, bloodied and stained and gesturing desperately for Rosa and Kain to fall back. Baigan seized Cecil's savaged arms in the maws of dead serpents and hauled him upright, clasped to himself as if embracing him.

_: Come now, don't you have something to say, Captain? :_

Twisting in the bony, thorny grips, Cecil spat bloody froth and locked eyes with Rosa, with Kain.

".. You need to run ..."

_: Now, now. Give me the traitor, at least, Captain, because I see that Highwind is a traitor twice over now. Where is the new Captain of the Red Wings, Highwind? :_

Kain swore and leaped. His first blow fell wide, Baigan shifting his hideous mass to block the flashing blade of the lance with his captive; his second, launched the moment he touched the dais, severed dead spines and drew a roar of pain from the unliving Captain of the Guard. A sea of serpent heads and long bony thorns rushed him and Kain ignored them all, ignoring the venom burning into his veins as they struck home. Nothing was important but cutting the beast down.

"Rosa! Make it count!"

She'd tossed her bow aside, closing as much distance as she dared, unwilling to launch arrows and risk hitting Cecil whose wounds ran red anew as he struggled against his bonds. Baigan shuddered under Cecil's attempts and Rosa saw the shine of white spells, holy spells, cast at point-blank range into Baigan's dead corpus. But there was no strength in them. Small magics, and few of them.

_How long were they fighting before we arrived?_

Biting her lip, she volleyed her own incantations into the melee. Curaja and its like wouldn't purge the corruption from Cecil's veins but it could still slow the flow of blood, and Baigan writhed, screaming invectives, under the onslaught. Kain, punctured by a dozen fangs and more, came soaring down again, drove his lance through Baigan's very skull, and was thrown off by the horror's convulsions. The walls themselves began to writhe.

Cecil tore one arm free of shattered jaws, worked the other loose to the elbow from slippery, skeletal coils, ignored the barbs buried in his trunk, and reached out towards Rosa.

"Rosa! ... Rosa -- throw me my sword --"

Her next spell faltered and faded; startled, she met Cecil's gaze, saw lucid pleading in those pale eyes. But -- if she missed -- if he fumbled --

"... Rosa, please ... hurry."

No. She needed to trust in him. 

Wrenching his weapon free of Baigan's seared skull, wrenching himself from spine coils that crushed like tentacles, Kain prepared to leap again.

Rosa whispered a prayer, pulled Cecil's blade free from its lodging in her quiver, and threw. It sailed to Cecil's outstretched hands; was nearly lost from Cecil's half-numb fingers when Baigan, head clove in twain, clawed at the bright metal while it burned him. Cecil firmed up his grip despite his savage injuries, tilted his head briefly to give the startled Kain acknowledgment, looked back again to smile sorrowfully at Rosa, lifted his sword as high as he could manage --

\-- then reversed grip and drove it grating between his ribs to bury itself into the core of Baigan's festering torso.

With an unholy scream the horror burst into a shower of black ichor and bony shards, and Cecil fell to the dais steps, unmoving.


	7. Chapter 7

_What --_

Kain's lance flew from his hands, his lunge towards Cecil carrying him past the man altogether when Baigan's shuddering remains thrashed a rotting coil of bone around him for one fleeting heartbeat. He kicked at the thing viciously, tore himself free, and scrambled to the pale and bloody doll crumpled on the steps without a thought for his own pride.

"Cecil! Damn you, answer me! What were you --"

There was too much blood, the sword still lodged in place. Cecil rolled his head a fraction, trying and failing to focus on Kain's figure hunched over him like some vaguely draconic gargoyle, and when he forced the words from his throat they were barely a whisper.

"... the only way. and not --"

\-- a bloodied cough, a wheeze that shook wounds old and new --

"-- not the end. only ... only for ..."

More than enough, that. Kain shook his head, slashing the air with one hand. 

"Don't waste your strength --"

Rosa charged up next to Kain, scanning over Cecil with a critical eye, ashen pale but eerily calm. Her bow still lay abandoned but she hardly needed it; the phials and packets at her girdle, now, that was a different story. Quickly she located the ether she needed and downed the shimmering contents, then fixed Kain with a look of command, one hand on his shoulder. He glanced up at her, waiting, but not for long; she'd already moved to Cecil's opposite side, hands raised to begin her incantation.

"The moment I start, pull the sword out. Don't argue and don't hesitate."

"Understood."

He flexed his hands, wrapped his fingers gingerly around the bloodied hilt -- tried to ignore Cecil's choking cry of pain -- and angled his approach to minimize further injury, just barely in time to catch the first whisper of Rosa's incantation. 

_Now!_

Kain drew the blade free with a sickening, grating sensation that echoed through his hands. Rosa leaned over Cecil, pouring healing magic into him, murmuring reassurances threaded into her spells, and all Kain could do was move back with the weapon still in his hands, and give her the space she needed. Magic could -- and often did -- perform miracles, but only if you got there in time.

Under Rosa's hands Cecil coughed weakly, shuddered, coughed again. Kain felt the familiar ice in his bones again; if Rosa's spells failed -- if he'd caused fatal injury pulling the damn sword --

Another cough, and then a soft moan that trailed off into weak cursing. Slowly, Cecil lifted a trembling hand to try to rake his hair out of his face, but Rosa intercepted him with a sharp look.

"You aren't so much as moving a literal hair until I know you're safe."

Her voice softened.

"You know better than that. You know how this works."

The ghost of a smile crept onto pale and bloodstained lips.

"... much ... like knowing how ... to strike ..."

" _Hush_ , you."

But while all that banter was cute enough, Kain felt a stab in his own guts. Not over them, no – and wasn't that a pleasant discovery, one he had every intention of exploring assuming they all survived -- but a sharp warning that they were still in the heart of enemy territory. He grounded the tip of the holy sword against the stony steps, rasping a humourless chuckle when Rosa jumped. A broad gesture with the blade followed, taking in the darkened throne room with its still-present draperies of snakespine vines and stains of discorporated, unliving flesh.

"Whatever we're doing next, if Cecil's right and the bastard's likely to try again we can't stay here. The question is where to try to go. It's a long trek back into town if we can't get the portcullis open from this side either."

Cecil's murmur was faint, but clear.

"... I think I know where to go. Quickly, before Baigan manifests again."

-*-

The trek to the eastern tower had never felt so long as it did with an armful of battered paladin, and Kain was beyond grateful to reach the thing without much more than a few skirmishes against minor haunts: a handful of knots of skeletal serpents, thorny and wreathed in ghostflame, promptly dispatched by Rosa's arrows and swift spellcasting.

It was just as well that she was keeping them intact, he mused, because there was hardly much he'd be able to contribute if they were properly ambushed. Not with Cecil a limp bundle in his arms, murmuring apologies every step of the way as if it was somehow unspeakable to need a chance to recover from horrors like what he'd experienced.

_Without even consideration of his actual injuries, for that matter._

Through the tower's entry portal, and promptly left, down the dim stairwell they went. The difference was clear the moment the pair stepped into the lower gallery; the air was clearer, the softly glowing lights lining the passage more welcoming, the walls simple, bare stone, the pillars bare of spectral growths. Kain felt the inkling of a familiar presence and dared to lower his guard a hair, feeling Cecil settle further in his arms. Next to him Rosa dared a bit of a smile and pressed onward to the lower corridor.

Yes, the chamber that waited for them would be safe. Kain had no doubts about that now. Nor was he surprised to see, once they took the final flight of stairs and turned the corner, that the tiny throne room was warmly lit and welcoming, empty though it may appear.

_Thank you, Your Majesty._

He glanced towards the throne; Cecil, following his attention, shook his head.

"Not there. Not in this place ... The floor is fine. I only need to catch my wind again ..."

Well, that was debatable, but Kain wasn't going to argue once Rosa, nodding in agreement (though not without a certain air of resignation), gave him the sign that he should go ahead. Dropping carefully to one knee, he lay Cecil out on the flagstones; a banner pulled from the wall and folded worked well enough to cushion Cecil's head a little. So settled, Cecil sighed. Rosa took up a seat of her own next to him, attentive, and Kain folded himself onto the small dais' steps to watch over them both. Or, perhaps ...

"Cecil. Do you think you can fight again if we stole a few hours' rest for ourselves in here?"

"I ..."

There was a long pause. Cecil closed his eyes, mouth pursing slightly, and Rosa watched him like a hawk, not that Kain blamed her in the slightest. When it came, the response was careful, and apologetic.

"... I think that I could, but not for long. I've fought him more than once already. He's ... I was the one to kill him to begin with, so perhaps he'll continue to focus on me if we three confront him at the once. If ... if that was Baigan, if I should call that creature Baigan ..."

No wonder he looked like death. Kain cocked his head, questioning, eyes hooded and grim despite the aura of safety the small chamber blanketed over them. There was something itching in the back of his mind about all this, something about Baigan and the dead and Golbeza's shadow war and his own part in all that, and why was he reminded of the damned Tower and ...

And Lugae.

Wait.

Kain's gorge rose, remembering Lugae and his experiments; he fought it down. This wasn't the time. What he needed to remember was whether or not --

"I -- I don't know, if I ever knew, whether or not Lugae 'worked' on Baigan the way he'd mutilated the king and queen of Eblan, but it's not impossible. What you and Yang and the others fought may well have been him and not a beast wearing his face."

Rosa, holding Cecil's near hand, shook her head uncertainly.

"His Majesty was murdered and replaced by Cagnazzo, and we know that from the monster's own mouth -- you said so yourself, Cecil -- and also from His Majesty, right here in this chamber. It wouldn't have been difficult to do the same to Baigan at the same time."

She felt Cecil grip her hand; using her as a brace with a soft apology, he heaved himself into what passed for a sitting position, weaving unsteadily and gulping great breaths, and waved off her and Kain both. He looked far too excitable for someone who just danced on the knife-edge of death, a mix of growing realization and all-too-real horror spreading across his face.

"No. No, he must be himself. He _must._."

"Cecil ..."

Kain caught him by the shoulder, half to steady, half to restrain. Cecil ignored him, shook his head emphatically, tightening his hold on Rosa's hand as he did so.

"No, listen to me. Please, listen. Baigan had ... a good deal to say to me, whenever we fought. And -- afterwards, as well. A very good deal to say, and what that was ..."

A brief pause; Cecil squeezed his eyes closed for a moment and Kain briefly wondered if he was going to be catching the man before he toppled. But Cecil rallied and pressed on with his explanation.

".. It _was_ the raving of the restless dead. He's a ... I'm trying to find the words to describe this ... He _is_ restless, vengeful. He's come to Baron because to him I'm an usurper, a traitor."

In Cecil's next pause to steady himself he caught Rosa's quick intake of breath, Kain's guttural oath. But he wasn't finished, not yet.

"Don't you see? If this apparition -- if the Baigan we fought when we clashed with Cagnazzo -- wasn't truly him, warped into monstrous form, then why would his soul, even mutilated as it is, claw its way back to Baron to defend His Majesty's honour? Would a mere beast even be able to muster the strength of spirit to form a revenant? And ... and he almost shows, at times, who he was. What he was. Human, if a restless spectre of himself, bent on vengeance. For himself, for his king. I wonder ..."

\-- and now he did close his eyes against the revelations his rambling thoughts bestowed --

"I wonder if he even realizes, in his dead madness, that Cagnazzo murdered His Majesty."

Abruptly, Cecil sagged sideways into Kain with a small cry of surprise. Hooking one arm around him, Kain gave Rosa a wry look over the tangled fall of silvery hair and hitched one shoulder in a hapless sort of shrug.

"This is where I repeat my suggestion of a few hours' rest, I'd say."

No one argued.


	8. Chapter 8

In the end 'a few hours' could have been half a day or more; down deep where they were, there was no real way of knowing. Not that it mattered to Cecil so long as they stood a chance of snatching victory out of the jaws of -- well, out of the jaws of what he was very rapidly considering righteous outrage, in its own way.

_We have done wrong by you, Baigan, so very wrong. I have done wrong by you, and I see that now. Another addition to the litany of sorrows that I've caused because of my thoughtlessness, my weakness._

Carefully, gingerly even, Cecil stretched battered barely-healed muscles under Rosa's watchful eye, testing himself as best he could before she was willing to let him wade into combat. He didn't fault her any more than he did Kain and his shadowing. There was all of Baron hanging in the balance.

_My weakness has caused too many people pain, including you, Baigan._

_Today I will make amends, if I can._

His head felt clear; his hands were, if not perfectly steady, then steady enough. He'd managed while in worse shape after Golbeza attacked in the Tower that one time, at that. Softly he asked for his sword and felt a surge of reassurance when Rosa handed it to him without hesitation. 

For a brief moment he stared into the mirror-bright blade, and prayed that he was making the right decisions. Then he looked up again, to meet the concerned faces of his companions.

"I feel ready. Let's go."

There was no time for hesitating now. They had a purpose; to save their kingdom, to bring their people home -- and, Cecil fervently hoped, to send a soul to rest. Armed and, if not precisely primed, as ready as they could ever be, as a trio they gave their goodbyes to their unseen guardian and climbed the steep flights back to the base of the eastern tower, their goal the throne room once again. 

This time the courtyard was a riot of serpent 'roses', pale and venomous and thorned in bone, and Cecil couldn't tell if the things were real or phantasms. He gave them as wide a berth as he could and the others followed suit, picking their way carefully across the crazed, spiderwebbed flagstones. Above their heads, the sun, red and swollen, sank towards the west. Night was creeping in; they had no time to waste. Whether he liked it or not, Cecil needed to bring Baigan to bay once more --

_May this be the last time I must wage this battle. Please._

Rosa clearly had questions she wanted to ask, but when he queried after them she only shook her head and said it wasn't the time for indulging her curiosity. For his own part Kain seemed withdrawn, and that was something that Cecil could address, if only lightly. He fell back a pace to match strides, leaned in slightly before Kain could shy away.

"Please don't say that you're blaming yourself for any of this. It'd not be true."

Kain looked away quickly.

"It is not that I should have speculated about Baigan before -- by the time I was certain I was myself again, the man was long gone. It is that I chose to leave again. I should have been here; with you, with Rosa. I should have been here for Baron's people."

Thin lips lifted away from Kain's teeth in a self-recriminating snarl.

"So much for reclaiming my pride, eh? Too prideful by far, more like."

"Never."

His hand on Kain's shoulder, Cecil squeezed lightly -- not that it made much difference, through the tight plating of Kain's armour, but he made the gesture nonetheless.

"You proved yourself to yourself, did you not? And you found your balance again -- I can see the changes in you. You did what you needed for yourself and that is not a sin."

Like a ghost herself, Rosa appeared at Kain's other shoulder.

"You knew, came down from Ordeals, and decided to up and head back to Baron lone and singlemindedly to rescue the kingdom and Cecil. I think that shows your heart no matter what you protest, even if you _did_ slip past me like some shadow from Eblan to do it. I forgive you for that last, though. You just can't help yourself."

Maybe it was inappropriate to be laughing as they crossed the blighted courtyards; but they seized the moment while they had it, the first time all were in accord in a very long time.

-*-

For all that he welcomed it, though, Cecil felt their high spirits drain away the instant they crossed the inner keep's threshold and entered the first of the great halls. Light was nearly nonexistent, granted only by phosphorescent bony growths and the pale balefires of what he was certain were tormented spirits -- spirits that bore down on them like starving wolves. Grimly, he brought his blade into a ready stance and closed the distance, eyes on the gaping doorway lying ahead.

"Fight your way through but don't waste effort on them! They'll only wear us down!"

The hall flared with pearly light -- Rosa darting past him, the last tendrils of holy magics still clinging to her -- and the spectres shrieked in agony and disappeared. A gamble but a good one. Cecil shouted appreciation of her ploy and raced after her, Kain a scant pace behind. Ahead lay the cross-hall, then the waiting hall, both filled no doubt with more wailing souls and clutching, clawing bones ...

... And then, the throne room, the bloodstained stones, and -- he hoped, he dreaded -- Baigan.

He was not disappointed. The seething mass of death and hate, coiling and writhing, sprawled across the dais steps and drew himself together the instant the three plunged across the threshold, looming like an ogre over them, twisted skeletal snake-claws grasping slowly at the empty air, the golden eyes -- now empty sockets, now dark and human in a corpse-pale face that flickered oh so briefly into existence -- battening onto them with a look fit to devour their souls.

_: How many times are you going to try, Captain, before you give in to me? :_

The rotting reptilian features twisted with sudden hatred, fangs bared.

_: You'll never erase what you did! Baron will never forgive you, traitorous bastard -- none of you! You aren't fit to stand before this throne! :_

Taking a single step forward, Cecil held up a hand, reached out --

"Baigan, wait --"

_: I'll silence you forever this time! A cell's too good for the likes of you -- traitors deserve nothing but the executioner's block! :_

The horror surged down the dais with terrifying speed and the air filled with the sound of a thousand hissing serpents, a rattling like dry bones. Shaking his head -- no, this was not what he wanted -- Cecil sidestepped and struck the first wave of striking coils cleanly, severing dead flesh and splintering bone. Rosa raised her hands, ready to cast another holy spell; then, thwarted by Kain's abrupt launch into the air and unwilling to risk catching him in the blast, she dropped the incantation and limbered her bow. The first arrows peppered Baigan's torso, lodged in one eye; the second volley went wide as Kain landed, driving his lance into the bony thorns of the horror's central mass. Dragged in a widening crescent, the bright oxtongue blade carved through unliving corpus like it was mist -- 

_: **don't touch me, filth** :_

\-- and a score of coils crushed Kain into a wall, throwing him like he was nothing but a child's doll. He slid down a pillar, coughing blood and struggling to regain his footing, but one leg refused to obey him. Horrified, Cecil lashed out at Baigan's thrashing coils to drive him back and draw his attention away from the fallen dragoon long enough for Rosa to reach him.

"Leave Kain be! It's me that you want, isn't it? Come and claim me, then, Baigan --"

Dead mad eyes blazed with fury; Baigan surged towards Cecil, who danced back lightly, sword held high and ready, a gleaming ribbon of blessed silver ready to cleave through the corrupted dead.

If Cecil chose to.

If he had to.

Baigan, hissing, leering, leaned in close, long lean neck cloaked in putrid scales -- and Cecil felt venom burn through his veins again, fangs buried in his flank from the strike he didn't see. 

_That's right, attention on me ..._

From the corner of his eye Cecil saw Rosa scramble past the roiling spine-chains, kneel next to Kain. Good. Baigan clamped a maw onto Cecil's free wrist, began to lift; refusing to flinch, refusing to look away, Cecil stared into the dead eyes.

_: I'll take your heart -- :_

"If that is what it takes to let you rest, Baigan, then let it be so. If that is what you need to be free, then do it."

Quietly; honestly. Ignoring the pain, ignoring -- as much as it tore at him -- what unfolded just beyond, Cecil poured all that he had into the softly-spoken words.

"I understand now. I know what happened -- Lugae happened, didn't he? That monster made you into this -- turned you against the kingdom -- and took your will away from you. He twisted your flesh to serve his master. And I never realized that."

A flicker of sun-blonde hair, a shadow of a drawn and aquiline face, agonized in death, contorted the reptilian grin. Cecil let out a breath. Lowered his blade, slowly and deliberately, not looking away.

"I never realized that, and I had cut you down without looking back, assuming you were a beast like the one that killed His Majesty. But you remember yourself now, don't you, no matter what Lugae warped you into becoming. You know who you are.”

The blade sank lower still. Baigan scissored his fangs. 

Cecil pressed on.

“We never thought to look for you -- we rebuilt Baron, and we did not look back, and that is my sin against you. That is how I have wronged you, Baigan, and no apology will be enough for that. I know this.”

The dead do not breathe, and their hearts do not beat; they need nothing ... except. Except. Baigan's grip on Cecil slackened, the fangs in his flesh loosened their grip ...

_: You ... :_

Cecil dropped his blade altogether, ignoring Kain's curse as the weapon rang against the flagstones. Please, Kain, stay down; Rosa, stay with him, don't come to my aid. Don't. Don't. Please.

"All I wish is to see Baron prosper. And Baron's people are afraid, Baigan, they've fled because they're fearful for their families. I swear to you: I have done, and will do, everything in my power to set their fears to rest.

"Please, Baigan. It's time to go. Baron will know about your sacrifice, I swear it."

It burned; oh, how it burned. His vision swam, blood running freely, venom coursing through his veins. Baigan stared him down, hissing, knot upon knot of bone and dry scale and what remained of a bloodstained uniform, fleshless jaws working. Fighting darkness, Cecil reached toward his captor with a now-empty hand.

"I wish I'd saved you. I wish I'd known. I'm so sorry."

A choking sound, rattling, dry, rang through his head as the world turned dark and he fell to the stony floor. 

Then – as the darkness rushed in --

_: thank you :_

-*-

_And now we start over again, again._

Rosa was almost resigned to it now, seeing as it was better than any number of less pleasant alternatives. Like, say, Baron becoming an undead hellpit. 

Or losing anyone else.

_You're keeping me on my toes, aren't you._

Whatever Cecil had done, or said, it had certainly worked. Baigan just suddenly faded without warning from the throne room as if he was nothing but mist melting in the morning light; in the last moment, she could have sworn he'd looked the way she remembered him. The horrors inflicted on the castle disappeared with him. And the moment he was able, Cecil insisted on holding a proper memorial for the once-Captain of the Guard.

So here they stood, in the king's subterranean chamber once again, the words said and promises made to someone she'd never expected to consider 'dearly departed'. 

_And yet, it was nothing less than he'd deserved, really._

With nothing left of the man and no body to bury, the memorial focused on the sword of his post, recovered weeks past during the shadow war's aftermath. Now Cecil lifted the sheathed blade from the blessed stand it rested on, to place it with other honoured relics in Baron's deep vault. Rosa watched him, noting the tiny flinch, the shadow of guilt. Cecil was going to be a long way recovering from this ordeal, just like the others that still haunted him.

Kain, also, looked subdued, and stubborn, and likely to ignore her orders to not strain his injuries yet again. He'd half-jokingly threatened to go back to the mountain to re-train a third time, frustrated beyond measure at his mangled leg; Rosa knew the prideful fear that was lurking beneath, and added that to her personal watch.

Alas, not all ghosts that haunt can be banished --

Suddenly an arm slipped around her; Cecil held her close, Kain hooking his own arm awkwardly around them both a moment later. 

_But that can wait for another day._

_It's good to be home._


End file.
